


A Really Very Not Great Idea

by XIIIBlackCatXIII



Series: The Magnus Archives shorts [9]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, martin has a crush, pre any relationships, slight appearences of sasha and elias too, tim has a void for common sense, tim probably keeps a tally for how many people hes kissed in the archives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:14:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XIIIBlackCatXIII/pseuds/XIIIBlackCatXIII
Summary: Tim has a great idea!Martin doesn't like it, nor his involvement in it!Set in S1, after Martin moves into the Archives.
Series: The Magnus Archives shorts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689514
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	A Really Very Not Great Idea

"Tim, I don't think this is a good idea!" Martin's worried voice was quiet as the two men made their way up the stairs from the Archives.

"Martin, Martin, Martin," Tim's voice was light, not bothering to keep his volume down, "it's a great idea! Even Sasha signed off on it!"

"That's because you didn't actually tell her what you're doing!" Martin punctuated his words with a jab in the direction of the plastic bag Tim was carrying.

"Whoa Nelly, don't get vicious at Captain Salmon!" 

Martin took a deep, shaking breath, "you could get fired- Elias could fire _all_ of us, and then we'll all have to look for new jobs and then I'll have no money and my mu-"

Tim stopped him in his tracks, putting his hands on Martin's shoulders, the bag slapping gently against his jacket, "Martin, no one's gonna get fired! Stop panicking, yeah?" He winked, but didn't make to move away from Martin.

"How do you know no ones gonna get fired! This is literally, _literally,_ the dumbest thing you've ever done, a- and you've dragged the rest of us into it!" 

Martin gripped Tim's wrists, not painfully, as Tim tried to not roll his eyes.

"Is this where I kiss you and tell you it'll be alright?" Tim grinned deviously as Martin sputtered, his face going red, "no? Too caught up on Mr. Grumpy, huh?"

Martin's incomprehensibleness somehow managed to get worse, and he pulled himself away from the Cheshire Cat grin of his now least favourite co-worker.

Tim laughed, and jerked his head up the stairs, “c’mon lover boy, you only got lookout to worry about,” he started back up the last flight, Martin just following after him numbly, trying to get his composure back, “if Sasha’s distraction fails and you see Elias, just act like there’s a problem in the Archives and make him go down ‘sides, it's his own fault for being bitchy about you camping out here!”

Martin shook his head but said nothing, Tim was walking in front of him, so he didn’t see it. The pair continued up to the hallway containing the office of the man with the power to absolutely ruin their lives, Tim walking as though he owned the place in contrast to Martin’s hunched and nervous posture.

They passed Elias’ office, and through the small window in his door they could see Elias’ back and Sasha, gesturing wildly, and Martin couldn’t help but wonder what she was talking about.  
Tim gave her a cheery wave as they passed, heading further along to the small break room that only Elias used.

“Okay, you stand here and follow the plan, I’ll only be a second!” Tim’s voice was almost a stage whisper, and Martin opened his mouth to argue, but Tim darted inside the break room, giving the increasingly more anxious man a pair of finger guns before turning to look for his target.

Martin’s teeth worried at his bottom lip and he clasped his hands together to stop them from shaking as he stepped away from the door, he noticed Tim spot the two microwaves in the room, and begin removing his… Ingredients.

Martin glanced frantically around the empty corridor, thankful there wasn’t a security camera up here. He was terrified someone might see them despite knowing that the only people up there were the people involved in this ‘prank’ of Tim’s.

_God_ that’d be horrible to try and explain, he’d get fired and then he’d have to look for a job with no references and if he even mentioned this place he’d get laughed out of _anywhere_ and then he’d have to move his mum to a government funded care home and he’d _have to tell his mother that he’d lost his most solid job over a couple of fi-_

“Martin?”

Martin jumped so badly he almost fell over, and he whipped around to see Jon standing behind him, “Jon!” The name came from his mouth more like a high pitched squeak, and Jon took a step back.

There was a very slight crease of worry between Jon’s eyes, “what are you doing up here?”

Martin parroted the question back, his anxiety skyrocketing as Jon’s eyes searched his face, trying to find the source of it all.

“I came to see Elias. Are you alright? Are you ill?”

Martin shook his head a bit too forcefully, “me too! Wh- what a coincidence!” Jon’s concern grew even more evident as Martin avoided answering his questions, “S- Sasha’s with him now…” He added on lamely, wringing his hands.

Jon glanced back down the corridor he’d just walked up, as though expecting to see Sasha and Elias talking outside the office, his expression betraying the fact he hadn’t bothered glancing in the little office door window as he passed on the way to Martin.

“If it’s okay with you, I would like to speak to him first. I have to speak with him about an incident involving Prentiss.” It wasn’t a question, Jon expected Martin to give up his spot in the imaginary queue without any fuss regardless of perceived importance.

But he still gave Martin another glance, and an awkward, “are you… okay?”

Martin had barely registered Jon’s words, he was too preoccupied with switching back and forth between ‘he’s going to find out and i'm going to be fired and moneyless and homeless and my mum will hate me even more-’ and ‘I want to tuck that piece of hair that’s in his face behind his ear it’s just there in the way and he’s so close I could just reach out and-’

Thankfully though, as though sensing the half of Martin’s thoughts pertaining to his hair, Jon distracts him by tucking the aforementioned hair behind his ear, and Martin sees that each of his fingertips are covered by a plaster.

Martin’s concern overthrew everything else, and he almost reached out to grasp the hand, “what happened? Did you get hurt?”

Jon was taken aback by the sudden change in the larger man, and it took him a moment to realise Martin was talking about his hands. He clutched the hand to his chest, and covered it with the other even though that one also had the same treatment of a plaster on every fingertip.  
“N- no, I just-” Maybe it was just the shoddy lighting, but Martin thought he could see a slight blush at Jon’s ears, “I- I-” Jon took a deep breath, and set his face to a stony mask, refusing to look at Martin, “ _if_ it will assuage your fears, I merely put them there to stop a childish habit of biting my nails bloody.”

“Oh.” Was all Martin could say, it was a much better answer than he’d feared, and to be quite honest, he wished he had thought to do it for himself, his nails could never hold nail polish for long with how he chewed them from stress, and anything to deter him from leaving them a tattered mess was a great idea to him. He did once try fake nails, but the pull of them on top of his real nails made him feel ill, and he’d removed them almost immediately, wasting most of the rest of that day scrubbing his nails to get the ghost of that feeling from them.

It was only then that Martin noticed that the plasters covering Jon’s fingers had some children’s cartoon pig on them (Martin refused to acknowledge that he knew Peppa Pig), and realised that they were the plasters from the first-aid kit that sat on the counter of the Archive’s break room, because Tim had made a great show of replacing the normal blue ones with them.

“Did- did you take them from our first-aid kit?” His voice was slightly incredulous, and he noticed that Jon was most definitely blushing now.

“I- look- they- they were what was available!” Jon stuttered, his voice getting higher with his embarrassment, his mask shattered to pieces by a cartoon pig.

Martin giggled, and Jon grew more flustered, “they- they’re refilling it tomorrow! They won’t care if a few paper cuts weren’t properly recorded!”

Martin could practically feel the heat coming from Jon’s face now, and he tried to calm himself.

Thankfully, or not, that moment was when Tim stepped out of the break room and strode the few paces over to Martin, draping himself over his shoulders, “as much as I hate to interrupt this positively awkward primary school flirting, I’m bored of waiting now, c’mon Martin, let’s go!”

Jon started at this interruption, and looked at Tim in confusion, his nose wrinkling as they passed him, “what’s that smell?”

Tim turned back, “smell? What smell? There’s nothing fishy going on here, boss!” 

Then, with a wink and a wave, he whirled back around, grabbed Martin’s arm, and pulled him down the stairs with Jon’s bewildered face watching them go.

Once on the relative safety of the next floor down, Martin glared at Tim, “ _fishy?_ He’s gonna know what you did and what _I_ did and tell Elias and-”

Tim cut him off with a laugh and a dismissive wave of his hand, “Jon wouldn’t rat us out! And neither would Captain Salmon! She was completely vigilant while her crew took their garlic bath before their sauna, and that’s where she’ll stay!”

Martin covered his face with his hands and groaned loudly, “ _yeah right!_ Like Jon’s not gonna go to Elias and say ‘hey I just saw Tim and Martin by your microwaves, where there’s garlic covered _salmon_ cooking and filling the whole room with a horrendous stench’!”

Tim laughed gleefully, “don’t worry Martin! I know he won’t blag about it, he’s done too much shit to justify that!” 

Martin peeked through his fingers at Tim, and as the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’ flashed through his mind, he asked, “like _what?_ ”

Tim seemed to have been waiting for this, and his face broke out in a grin that Martin can only describe as evil.  
“Like snogging me in the supply cupboard on company time after a bit of day drinking.”

Martin almost tripped down the stairs, “he didn’t! He wouldn’t!” His voice was high again, and he felt a blush creeping up his face for some, unknown, probably gay reason.

Tim laughed again, and patted the top of Martin's head sweetly, “oh Martin, the things I could tell you about our little Jonathan would curl your curly hair.”

  
Martin just stared in disbelief as Tim sauntered his way down the stairs, incredibly satisfied with himself.   
And maybe a bit jealous.

**Author's Note:**

> tim, later, to sasha: u shouldve seen his face when i told him that mayb now hell kiss me so i can have the full set


End file.
